View allAll Photos Tagged Pinetrees
The pine trees are loaded down with pollen this year and some of the cones, or burrs as they are also called, are beginning to open to set free their helicopter like seeds.
The wood under a died pine tree. Maybe not the most artistic photo, but still a nice one to function as a wallpaper.
World's End! What an evocative name, so final and dramatic, child-like in its descriptive simplicity but so right for the location it attempts to describe. I first came across the name when I was a young boy and had found a map illustrating a part of the English and Welsh border country near to my home. I've always had a love of maps, especially the Ordnance Survey maps which are amongst the best in the world and incredibly detailed. Learning how to interpret the symbols used in the map's Key was a mystery equal to understanding Egyptian heiroglyphics at that tender age and just as exciting in what was revealed. Just like books (I was/am a serious bookworm), maps transported me away from the mundane world, taking me off on strange adventures. I loved trying to imagine the terrain and look of the landscape described by the esoteric-looking symbols and map graphics. Being so young I had no reference points of experience to help me in my imaginings but with age comes wander-lust, travelling and an accumulation of visual memories, making my later assumptions that I drew from the maps much more accurate. The first time I read that name, World's End – English words hidden amongst the strange sounding and even more strangely spelt Welsh names – all sorts of wild and exciting images were conjured up in my head and I thought, "I have GOT to go there!". Many years later in my early twenties I did go, and the reality of what the place looked like was nothing remotely like the assumptions that I'd drawn from looking at the map as a young boy. Instead, what I saw as I came over the top of the bare moors and looked down the valley for the first time blew me away and that 2D map from childhood finally came to life. Seeing the huge cliffs of the limestone escarpment snaking off into the horizon was like coming across the Himalaya in my own back garden.
SInce then I've poured over many a map, working out routes to walk, backpack or mountainbike over. Some of the best 'map v reality' moments occured when I did Alfred Wainwright's famous Coast-to-Coast Walk, a 200 hundred mile, two week jaunt across the backbone of England going from the North Sea in the east to the Irish Sea in the west whilst taking in various national parks along a conveyorbelt of gobsmacking scenery. Each day was a revelation as I experienced the symbols and imagery of the maps made real. One of my abiding memories of doing the CTC was the buzz of excitement as I set out each morning, map in hand and tried to imagine what was around the next bend in the path or over the next hill top just from the map symbols, only to be surprised and awed by the reality every time. To me, every map is a pirate's treasure map and just as exciting, and these days even though X now more often than not marks the spot of a photographic pov, the adventure still lies not so much in the arriving but in the journey getting there and seeing the map symbols and graphics come alive around me as I move through the landscape.
Back to the present day and I was once again fortunate to be able to visit World's End along with my partner and budding tog, Jay. The sun had been playing push and shove with the clouds all day, occasionally bursting through gaps in the grey with "Ta daa!" exclamations of light. The clouds, though, remained unimpressed by their dazzling friend and slowly but surely drew together like a set of grey stage curtains to form an overcast sky of soft pale yellow and murky white. With only a light breeze to stir the air and nudge the lazy clouds along the light conditions were definitely here to stay. Remarkably, for such a dramatic landscape, the soft, flat light didn't do it any favours and left me struggling for shots until, that is, I came to the edge of the escarpment and looked down the valley...wonderful, the world just seemed to fade out of existence, for along with the overcast sky a haze had developed, softening the landscape even more and dissolving the horizon into layers of receding ephemeral hills, their slopes interlocking like the fingers of a green Buddha. Standing there, with only the ascending song of a skylark and the occasional "kronk-kronk" of a solitary raven to break the silence, I was reminded of how important it is to get to know the spirit/essence of a place before you even think of taking a shot, and that for me personally, getting to do that usually starts with a piece of paper full of strange symbols.
This slice of heaven captured here is better viewed in L.
Please comment also the negative aspects of the photo. It would help me to learn to be better photographer.
Koli National Park
Sunset at the bottom of pine tree in the field even though on the backroads there is always the lines of electricity wires , especially off the back roads..I tried to leave this image as natural as taken but did add the star where the sun was..It just felt right..
Whilst yesterday started incredibly overcast this morning was significantly brighter. We headed to The Priory Maze and Gardens, and very overpriced it was too.
Anyway, in the afternoon we then went back into town, had more ice cream and a wonder wander along the sea front on the sand, and the water. The weather has been much better than initially anticipated when making the long drive up on Friday. Tomorrow we shall head back, after a relaxing and enjoyable long weekend, boo!